


You're the Reason I Come Home

by lostinsanity



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anger Management, Angst, Body Worship, Cigarettes, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, EDNOS, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Fluff, I hate tags, M/M, Making Love, Medical Trauma, Muteness, Mutism, OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Piano, Psychological Trauma, Rehab, Rehabilitation, Self Confidence Issues, Separations, Sex, Shotgunning, Sneaking Out, Stargazing, a bit of niam but not too much, i'm so sorry about the tags, not a lot of it but some ya know, past ziam, reunited, selfharm, unrequited ziam - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:06:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinsanity/pseuds/lostinsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis thinks he can solve all his problems on his own. Harry has too many problems to even count.</p>
<p>Or, the one where two polar opposites attract on different sides of a piano at the rehab facility just out of town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're the Reason I Come Home

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [You're the Reason I Come Home || Polish Translation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3321602) by [stylesgryles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylesgryles/pseuds/stylesgryles)



> A warning to all: I know nothing. Please pardon any factual inconsistencies.
> 
> Staying up all night to write this was one of the best decisions of my life. When I started it, I was expecting a 3k oneshot. I was not expecting this.
> 
> Special thank you to Cera, who kicked me in the ass when I had work to do and led me through all the dark tunnels and also was an amazing beta. This wouldn't exist if it weren't for her. I love her with my soul.

In the beginning it was just a painkiller for his constant headaches. Prescription, in a small yellow bottle, top popped off and a little white pill tumbled out into his outstretched palm. What was once a regimen became a one a day, two a day, three, four, five, a constant seething hunger for the numbness that settled over him. It covered up his depression, anxiety; it eased the constant shaking that seemed to wrack his bones.

His small yellow bottle soon was empty and he was running for more, in search of relief, sweet, sweet relief. Little white pills grew into a maturing collection of more and more, all different colours, red and yellow and grey, big and small. He began to lose count on how many times he would escape to quiet and slip into his own little high, a world where he could be normal and not the freak with all the issues. He had bliss.

It all came down in shards of shattered glass pouring down on his shoulders when his stash was found, seemingly safely tucked away in the untouchable regions of Under the Bed, shoved in a suitcase and stuck as deep as he could shove it. But he had been foolish and had left the small saviours out in the open as he showered, waiting for anyone to stumble in and discover him. And discover they did; he was soon a prisoner of his life, strung up high to dry and questioned with a bright light shone in both eyes. Flung remarks of “druggie” and “addict” were tossed among softer statements among “here to help” and “will get better.” And with each word he could feel the tremble settling back into his body, his muscles twitching with the pain he felt nothing but. Tunnel vision led him to the only answer he could think of: a large handful of his friends and enemies, enough to slow down his heart until he fell into a breathless eternal sleep.

His attempt was failed, no success, and he awoke with a shake and a shiver and the sullen realisation that he was a nothing yet again; he crept along the creaky boards at the morning’s newborn hours, wee and small along with the rosy peaks of sunlight dipping in between the curtains. He found his refuge, once again in the form of a small yellow bottle whose top popped off. Secrecy turned to lies turned to hiding in broad daylight, nothing but glimpses of red-rimmed green eyes and messy curls shoved haphazardly into a hoodie. Retracting from his daily activities of eating, breathing, sleeping, he was nothing, a shell. But a shell was worse than the pain he felt, that _always_ pain that was equivalent to pulling his teeth out one by one.

Without a wavering hand, he kept to his word; those little pills made him okay. He was nothing without them, nothing with them. Nothing in general. Maybe that was how he redeemed his own actions; He was just a lost boy in a lost world, shuffling through the abandoned hallways looking for the glimmery light of Hope shining through the clouds and finding nothing but droplets of rain. He was “okay”, but he was so, so very far from being really, truly okay. He told himself the only reason he got up in the morning was to escape the nightmares into the windowless realm of pills. His silken voice was barely heard, a whisper in the murmur of the crowd, a murmur in the shouts. He kept himself closed because there was nothing to open, just a suit of skin and bones and nothing within.

He was found alone, in the murkiest corner of darkness, trembling, cold, hungry; surrounded by nothing but a heavy veil of fear and helplessness. He needed to be found. He _wanted_ to be, now. What had once made him okay was turning him to stone. He just didn’t know how to reach out and grab the hand that fed him instead of slapping it away.

And so, he sits now, staring over a desk into the bleary eyes of a Doctor, M.D., who knows all about what Harry is going through. He speaks no words. He does not smile, does not nod. He lets the doctor know that he does not, in fact, know what Harry is going through. One little slip is all it takes to shatter a skeleton of porcelain.

He’s brought to a very bright room to be once again interrogated, this time by a nurse in scrubs who uses guiding, gentle hands to ease the words from his strained lips instead of a bright light to blind him into spilling. He’s ushered into pajamas that are three sizes too big, held up with a discouraging tie of strings and a promise that smaller ones will be in by next week, and he’s brought to a room on the second floor, with a window that opened one inch and two beds, either of which his feet would hang off the end of.

The first thing he does is sleep, thinking that maybe it will take the edge off the fact that he’s in _rehab_ , but the white scratchy sheets do nothing but remind him of the fact that yes, this is real, and he’s truly fucked up, and suddenly, he doesn’t remember how it all started. Harry just knows it did, and once it came, it never left him alone again. Sleep comes all too fast yet far too slow; he’s in the middle of a thought when his eyes fall shut and he suddenly escapes his sinister reality for even a moment.

-

“You’re going to miss breakfast.”

Harry’s eyes creak open slower than the word tumbles out of his mouth. “What?”

The boy standing before him is dark in every way, dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair, and a dark, blank expression. He runs his hands through his hair in a wrought way. “You’re new. Breakfast is at eight. They don’t serve it again today and you don’t get another chance to eat until noon, so I suggest you haul your ass out of that bed and eat or you’ll starve.”

Harry contemplates curling back up into the bed, but the hollowness in his stomach is intensified by the absence of his pills, so he stretches out his creaky limbs and stands. The dark boy doesn’t say another word, only puts on his rehab-issued white slippers and pulls open the lead-heavy door, walking out.

Harry looks down to see a pair of identical slippers in a bigger size and slides his feet into them. They’re warm on his bare toes. The bed on the opposite side of the room is affixed perfectly, sheets tucked and pillow smoothed, and Harry takes a moment to wonder if the boy took the time to fix it up again or if he ever slept in the first place. Along the wall above the bed is a perfect arrangement of sketches, art shaped into a timeline secured with clear tape stuck to flimsy wallpaper. On the desk by the window lies a sketchbook, two sharpened pencils placed carefully next to the closed cover, the chair tucked in with precision, centered in the exact middle of the desk. Harry recognises the practised perfection as possible obsessive-compulsive disorder. The room hasn’t got a thread out of place. Harry figures it’s that boy’s tic, what’s got him in here.

He leaves his bed unmade and follows the boy out and down the hall. He’s quite far ahead, and Harry moves quite slow, but apparently so does the boy, because Harry catches up with him quickly. The two walk side-by-side, the sash of the boy’s white robe brushing up against Harry’s arm and sending a chill up his spine.

“My name’s Zayn,” the boy tells Harry, and Harry nods, telling him his own name. “I’m guessing you’re a basket case too.”

Harry wets his lips with the flat of his tongue before he speaks. “Sure.”

“We all are.”

The walk to the cafeteria is conversation absent, even as the group heading down the hall slowly grows as more and more people leave their rooms and file down the corridor. The cafeteria itself is white, just like everything else. White ceiling and floor and walls are accentuated by the white of the tables and matching plastic chairs. The overwhelming scent of French toast and syrup cloaks the room in a sickly sweet haze. Zayn leads Harry over to a table that’s half occupied by a boy with brown hair who’s staring down into his breakfast and a blonde who’s pushing the cut pieces of French toast around and drowning them in maple syrup.

“That’s Liam. He doesn’t talk much,” Zayn explains, gesturing to the brunette. “Or at all, actually. PTSD, featuring mutism. The blonde is Niall. Eating disorder--not otherwise specified, to be exact. I’ve got OCD that used to stop me from doing daily things, but it’s gotten better now since I’ve been here.” The pair walk past the table and get in line at the end, slowly filing up to get their plates of food. “Why are you here?”

Harry looks around at the faces at the tables, each of them with the same empty eyes he sees when he looks in the mirror. “I could write a book with all the things that are wrong with me,” Harry finally answers simply as he takes his plate and follows Zayn back to the table.

-

Therapy is one of the worst things Harry’s ever endured. All it is is a white sofa in a white room (Harry’s been here for one day and he’s already sick of the colour white), occupied by a woman in normal clothes who claims her name is Dr. Russell and she’s going to help Harry with his feelings.

The first session is filled with answering of mindless questions like how he feels, why he’s here, if he’s okay or not (“fine, for popping pills, yes”). He kicks his slippered feet up onto the sofa and doesn’t meet eyes with the woman because he doesn’t trust her. Why would Harry share his deepest, sorest feelings with someone he’s just met?

He leaves the session feeling fulfilled (with hunger. It’s nearly time for lunch.)

-

Lunch is just the same as breakfast is, except they serve a vegetable stir-fry that Harry actually quite likes. He watches Zayn separate the vegetables into little piles, the baby corn cobs piled atop each other, broccoli heaped into a mountain, before he stabs them carefully with his fork. He watches Niall push it around his plate, occasionally popping a piece into his mouth when he catches a nurse looking. He watches Liam slowly, steadily and silently forking his food into his mouth, chewing deliberately and looking around as if he’s afraid someone is going to steal it from him. Harry finishes half the plate before his appetite is gone and his hands begin to shake and he feels like he’s going to faint.

He’s experienced withdrawal before, but each time, it gets no better. A nurse notices and leads him down to his room where he tries to lie down for a while but only winds up breaking out into a cold sweat and vomiting and babbling about how he doesn’t deserve to be here and soon he falls into a fitful sleep that only takes the sharpest edge of the pain that shows itself again in the form of his nightmares.

-

He sleeps right through dinner. Awakening the next morning is a task. He feels as if he has no reason to get out of bed, but Zayn is poking and prodding at him because he needs him up and out so that he can make the bed perfectly before he goes nuts. He wraps the blankets around himself once more before he wrenches himself out of its warmth and instead opts for the replacement of the white robe that’s hanging in the wardrobe in the corner of the room. His hands shake as he ties the sash around his thin waist.

Breakfast is scrambled eggs and sausage, but it’s not appealing to Harry, so he joins Niall in the skill of pushing food around on his plate to make it seem as if he’s eaten.

In therapy, Harry reveals nothing more than the fact that he needs his pills back. Dr. Russell just pats his leg and smiles, scribbling some notes down onto a yellow pad. His hands shake and sweat drips down his temple as he holds a white pillow to his chest and murmurs to himself because he can feel the darkness invading and weaving through the twists of his brain, scarring each bit of skin he thought he had left so savor.

He doesn’t eat lunch, either. He sits down at the table with his plate of noodles and watches Niall not eat and mimics him. He’s starving, but the unease in his stomach wouldn’t let him keep down food anyway. Niall ends up eating more than Harry does because Harry can’t even bring his fork near his mouth without feeling sick. Niall forces himself to take just a few bites to appease the nurses and to keep from heading back to the hospital. He glances up.

“You’re gonna want to eat that,” he comments, and his accent is thick. Irish. “You don’t want to wind up where I am.”

Harry’s drooping, glazed eyes trace over Niall, the way his skin is pulled taut along his face and his arms are impossibly thin. He knows he doesn’t want to be like that but he just _can’t_ eat, not now, so he just nods and goes back to playing with his food.

After lunch, the patients get a scheduled free time. Two hours in the courts and lawn outside or the multipurpose room inside. There’s a cart outside filled with basketballs and footballs and other things, but most of the patients are sat at the arrangement of picnic tables and benches, soaking in the rare sun they get each day. Inside, a shelf is loaded with board games, and a duo play checkers at one of the tables while another pair is engaged in a card game. Two computers near the end of the room are monitored by nurses as someone uses them. People are stretched out in the armchairs and recliners, enjoying a movie on the giant screen television. The sound, however, is drowned out by a boy colourfully playing the piano that’s tucked away into a corner.

Harry turns to look at the boy, who’s got feathered brown hair swept over his forehead and a scowl on his face. His fingers fly over the keys and play a beautiful tune, heavy and fast with tons of accents and things Harry didn’t think were possible on a piano. He’s not much of a musical person, but this boy can _play_. He wipes his sweaty, shaky palms on the sides of his white and blue pajama pants and heads over towards the sofa that’s near the piano because he really wants to keep listening to him play.

He tucks his legs close into his lap as he sits down and closes his eyes as Liam reads a book next to him. At a second thought, Harry glances over at him; his lips are pressed into a tight line and his eyes are cast down at the pages, but Harry can see a heaviness to them. He traces his eyes over Liam’s figure, noting pale, smooth skin, leading all the way down to his collar. His sleeves are long, covering down to his wrists and even the bottom of his hands. Zayn had said there was some sort of trauma that brought on his mutism, but there was nothing physical on the boy’s body to show not even the slightest hint of a trauma.

Harry’s eyes fall closed again and he just listens to the piano keys, the tune taking a turn from heavy and angry to a more of a light, quick melody. He’s beginning to get a headache and he’s got no one to talk to aside from maybe Zayn and Niall, who are both nowhere to be found. He sucks in a deep breath as he begins to struggle to breathe and he can _feel_ that darkness seeping in on him again, the same way it was before he turned to his pills to help him. He sits there, listening to the constant sound of the boy playing the piano, until the two-hour window is up and he has to go to a discussion group.

-

Harry begins to settle into a schedule at the facility. Breakfast at eight, therapy from ten to eleven forty-five, lunch at noon, free time from two to four, group session until five, dinner at six, free time until lights out at ten. Before he goes to bed he’s given a little white cup with two pills in it--an antidepressant and a sleep medication. A nurse watches as he takes them. He longs for the fog his old pills used to put him in, but at least he can escape into a dreamless sleep now instead of one dotted with nightmares.

Each day in the afternoon, the same boy is there playing piano. No one else even touches the monstrous grand piano in the multipurpose room but him. He just settles down on the hard wooden bench and places his fingers on the keys and creates something beautiful. Harry tends to have a recurring headache each day that’s constant from breakfast to bedtime, but for some reason listening to the boy play makes him feel a little better. And at least leaves him in a decent mood until lunch, where he always struggles to shove whatever that day’s meal is down his throat without being sick. The boy is never there after dinner. He’s not even in the room. Harry suspects he’s outside somewhere, but Harry’s never been much of the athletic type, so he really has no desire to go out and shoot some hoops or kick a ball around.

His withdrawal is no longer ruling his life and keeping him cooped up in a room heaving emptily over a toilet, but he’s beginning to get his migraines again, and he begs them for a painkiller, _something_ to make it go away. They never listen, though, and Harry knows they’re right, because that’s what drove him off the deep end in the first place.

It’s been about a month now and Harry’s not so much longing for his old life of pills and daze anymore, but he’s homesick. He’s still sad and anxious and his hands still shake but he wants to be home, in his own bed, waking up to a good breakfast and kissing his mum on the cheek and hugging his sister. Ever since escaping into the hellfire of drug abuse, Harry hadn’t told his family he loved them. He hadn’t told them he loved them for nearly two years.

He wants them to know they did what’s right for him all along.

-

On the morning of the one-month anniversary of Harry arriving at the facility, he settles down to write an email to his family. It’s one of the first days that Harry’s seen one of the computers free when he walks into the music ringing from the piano in the multipurpose room, so he seizes the opportunity and sits on the cold metal chair and tucks his giraffe-like legs into the cubby of the desk and opens up the browser and begins to type.

_Mum_ , it starts, but he erases it and changes it to _Everyone_. The words of it are a mumbling, rambling paragraph of _I love you_ s and _I miss you_ s and _You really did the right thing_ s and _I can’t wait to come home_ s. And, somewhere near the end, he finds himself writing about the beauty of the music he lives with each day from two to four. His fingers fly over the keyboard, much in the way that the boy’s fly over the piano keys, and before he knows it there’s nearly a page about a boy he’s never even met.

He reads it over and deletes the whole part, not realising until after he’s sent it that his hands hadn’t shaken the entire time he was writing it.

-

At dinner that night, Liam says the first word Harry’s heard him speak the whole month he’s been there. They’ve all finished eating, Zayn carefully placing his plastic cutlery in his used plastic plate and resting his napkin atop them, except Niall. He’s just cutting his steak into the smallest pieces possible and spreading them out thin, then bunching them up into a heap. He hasn’t taken a bite of anything the whole meal, and they all notice the gauntness of his face, the way his collar bones poke up so far above the V-neck of his white tee, how meager and delicate his wrists, forearms, even his biceps look. He’s not getting any better. It’s almost as if he’s getting worse.

Liam looks up from where he’s seated beside Harry and pushes up the sleeves of his long-sleeved tee. Harry finally sees it, the trauma Liam’s been through. He’s got burn scars covering up most of his arms, starting from his mid-forearm running all the way up and beneath the cuffs of his sleeves. Harry resists the urge to stare, but after this being hidden for so long, he can’t help but wonder what happened to him.

“Eat,” Liam tells Niall simply, and all of their faces snap up to meet Liam’s chocolate eyes.

Zayn reaches across the table to grab Liam’s wrist. “Liam? Can you say something else for me?” he says softly, and the desperation in his voice is audible as he tries to coax the words from Liam’s mouth.

Liam just drops his head and clamps his lips shut, and Niall slowly and quietly places a tiny piece of steak in his mouth. Harry watches him out of the corner of his eye as he finishes the whole plate, even though he looks like he’s feeling quite ill afterwards, and Harry’s the only one who notices the soft smile on Liam’s lips once he does.

-

Zayn’s drawing another sketch in that book that never seems to run out of pages as Harry lies in bed that night. He looks up at the shapeless ceiling above him that just fades into darkness, the only light being Zayn’s desk lamp illuminating only the page he’s scribbling on in front of him. Harry imagines that he’s looking up at the night sky, at the stars, burning bright and illuminating the darkness. He misses the night sky, the stars, the moon. He wishes he had stars in his life, little, tiny things that illuminated his darkness, that pushed away his pain for just the shortest time, if even for a moment.

Zayn suddenly tears the page from his sketchbook and closes it, placing his pencils delicately beside the book. He takes the roll of tape that’s on the desk and carefully tapes the new drawing up on the wall above his bed. Harry breaks his train of endless thoughts and rolls over to look at it from across the room.

It’s Liam, his eyes bright and face split with an open-mouthed smile. His grin is wide, his eyes crinkling up, and Zayn’s really captured the happiness in the drawing. Happiness Harry’s never seen Liam have. Harry’s never so much as seen Liam’s lips curve up, aside from that day at dinner. Either Zayn is a terrific artist, or…  

“I knew Liam before we came here,” Zayn says suddenly. He can _feel_ Harry staring at him, searching for an explanation. “I wound up first, because I couldn’t do anything, my OCD was so bad. But then Liam lost his family in a house fire. He wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t do _anything_ , and no one knew what to do, so his uncle sent him here.” Zayn sighs, turning to look at the portrait, leaving his back to Harry. “I haven’t seen him smile in so long. I miss it. I still love him.”

Harry opens his mouth to speak, but he can hear Zayn softly crying, and he wouldn’t know what to say either way. Zayn loves Liam, and all Harry can see in his mind is Liam’s smile when Niall finished his food. He goes back to staring at the ceiling, this time thinking of the scars on Liam’s arms and wondering if his family is sending down strength for their boy to hold on to. And for Zayn, too, because Harry can see that he’s suffering right beside him.

-

Harry doesn’t talk much. He’s not like Liam, not _that_ extreme, but he’s quiet. He doesn’t like to share the way he feels with many people, doesn’t like to let anyone in. Harry’s the type of person to conceal everything beneath a cloak, to pack it all deep within himself, box it up and tape the lid closed tight. He keeps his emotions in a Pandora’s box of pain, but sometimes curiosity kills the boy and he can’t help but spill over into a bubbling mess of babble and words and he can barely understand himself but afterwards he feels empty yet whole. Like a whole new person. Better but worse.

This happens at his therapy session four days after his first month.

When he enters the room and closes the door securely behind him and escapes from white to white with the colourful splat of Dr. Russell in her pink top and dark jeans seated on the white chair on the opposite end of the room, he expects this session to be just like the other thirty five have been. He expects an hour and forty-five minutes of Dr. Russell asking questions that Harry answers with one word; an hour of nodding heads and pillows clutched to chests and glances at the clock counting down the minutes to the seconds left of the session.

He doesn’t expect his jar of Harry’s Feelings to burst within him that day.

He sits down on the sofa and takes his socked feet from his white slippers and sprawls out on the sofa. Although he hasn’t opened up to the doctor yet, he’s come to feel quite comfortable in there, so he takes the comforts and makes the most of them, propping his head up with a pillow and crossing his hands on his chest. He’s tired, his head hurts, and he’s got an overwhelming feeling that something bad is going to happen and it’s making his heart _thump-thump_ erratically, as if he’s the drum set of a rock band blaring its sound out on a stage to millions of people. Lying down is a silver lining to this session of hell.

“Good morning, Harry,” Dr. Russell says in her Dr. Russell voice as he closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, trying to loosen up that tightness in his chest but failing. “How are you feeling today?”

Harry opens up his mouth to spit out his usual “Fine,” but what comes out in its place is, “I can’t figure out what draws me to the boy who plays the piano after lunch, but I can’t stop thinking about him and his music.”

Harry clamps his lips shut as soon as the words slip out, but it’s too late, and the look on Dr. Russell’s face is one of endearment mixed with surprise mixed with pride and contentment. Harry is _horrified_ , he _knows_ he wasn’t supposed to let that slip to _anyone_ , nevermind his therapist. The irony in that is heavy in the fact that a therapist is someone you should share things with, but not things like this.

It’s the truth, that Harry can’t get the nameless boy out of his mind. Harry knows nothing about him, he doesn’t even know what his voice sounds like or even the colour of his eyes, but that’s because they’re always cast down at the keys in front of him. It’s the _music_ , his sheer ability to put keys together without even reading the notes from a page and create something so eloquent, so beautiful, so perfect that you can’t help but stop and listen. The boy’s piano music sounds like he’s playing his soul down into it, and the mere fact that it’s nothing but his fingers and the keys that makes it so much better. Harry wishes he had that kind of ability, the kind of _passion_ that keeps him going and made him happy, because that sweet smile that always rests on the boy’s lips when he’s playing is something Harry would trade _anything_ to have. Coupled with the fact that the music is just music, just noise, and it has such an effect on Harry that he can sit there and listen to it for hours on end while doing nothing else. Nobody says a word to the boy about the music, because it’s clear that everyone enjoys it. And Harry wants very little more than to know the boy that engages everyone in a sort of peace that you just can’t find in a place like this.

Harry’s heartbeat is going out of control because Dr. Russell hasn’t said anything yet and he knows he’s messed up, he’s said something wrong, and now he looks like even more of a basket case than he did before. He’s anxious and his hands are still shaking even more than before, and he wants to fold in on himself and disappear and make life go on as if he had never existed in the first place.

“Louis,” Dr. Russell announces suddenly, and Harry’s confused until he realises that’s his name. The piano boy’s. “He’s a sweet boy, really. If you feel that way, why don’t you try and talk to him?”

Harry looks up at her, eyes wide with what could nearly be classified as fear. “What if he hates me?”

With a chuckle, Dr. Russell says, “He won’t hate you. Just talk to him. You’ll be okay.”

The session proceeds, but Harry’s palms grow sweatier and shakier and all he can think about is finally having a conversation with that boy whose name he finally knows.

-

Lunch is about to end and Harry’s observing Zayn stare at Liam while Liam stares at Niall who’s staring down at the half-eaten plate of food in front of him. The half of the cheeseburger left on his plate looks barren and sad, because the first thing Niall did was pick out the lettuce and tomato and eat them alone. A hopeful look from Liam had Niall eating half of the burger, but it seems like he can’t go on to finish.

“I can’t do it,” Niall murmurs, pushing the plate away from him. Zayn stares pointedly at it because it’s the only one left on the table and it’s now off-center and out of place, so he takes it and shoves it back in front of Niall just so it has somewhere to be. “I tried. I did.”

Liam looks at him with a tender gaze and it’s easy to tell that he’s proud of him just by his expression. Knowing what he does, Harry can see in Zayn’s eyes that he feels hurt, that he wished Liam would pay this kind of attention to him. Something tells Harry that Zayn might have loved Liam, but maybe Liam never really loved Zayn. Not the way Zayn did.

The nurses begin to round up the patients as the clock hits two o’clock, and Niall gets up and dumps the rest of his sandwich in the trash, but he really, really did try.

The four of them head out through the cafeteria doors and  Harry’s hands shake. He remembers the conversation from his therapy session earlier. The closer he gets to the multipurpose room, the more he can hear the music ringing in his ears and warming up his skin. He feels light headed at just the thought of talking to the boy, but Dr. Russell’s words echo throughout his mind and he musters up enough confidence to walk into the room as Liam, Zayn and Niall head outside.

As always, the boy--Louis is his name, now; Harry kind of forgets he has a name--is seated at the piano. His brown hair is hanging down over his face as he’s bent over the keys, body swaying just the slightest bit to the music he creates. As Harry gets closer, he sees that Louis’ eyes are closed behind his glasses and that just makes him so much more admirable. He’s playing one of the most beautiful things Harry’s ever heard and he’s not even _looking_ at the keys. It’s magnificent, really.

He doesn’t know how to start the conversation, especially because Louis seems to be _so_ into playing, with his eyes closed and everything. He stands just behind the piano bench, his knees nearly touching the curve of Louis’ back, and waits for a lull in the music. Harry sort of wonders how his fingers aren’t arthritic by now with all the playing he’s doing.

He reaches out a finger and taps Louis on the shoulder once, and abruptly he stops playing. He turns to face Harry, and it’s the first time Harry’s really seen _all_ of him, and the first thing he notices is that his eyes are the bluest shade of blue he’s ever seen, bluer even than Niall’s.

Louis is gorgeous, even more than Zayn, who is in a darker, more mysterious way. Louis’ face is all angles, from the slope of his nose to the bow of his lips to his sharp cheekbones and chiseled jaw. His brows are furrowed and he looks confused, almost angry, but it gives him an edge that’s contradictory by his boxy black glasses and the way his fringe rests on the top of them. Harry feels like his jaw is hanging open at the beauty of the boy, and he can’t find the words to speak.

Louis speaks instead. Well, he doesn’t speak. He shouts. He _explodes_.

“Is there something you want?” he spits, and Harry staggers backwards. He can feel everyone turning to look at them and his heart begins to race and his palms are sweaty and his chest grows tighter and tighter. “Don’t you know that when someone’s fucking _doing_ something you don’t just come up and rip them out of their focus? Have you no consideration for anyone but _yourself_?”

Harry can feel his eyes begin to burn and it’s been _so_ long since he’s cried but he can feel it coming and the fact that Louis is still yelling at him makes it hurt so much more. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s rude to interrupt someone?” he’s saying now. “Apparently not, are you some kind of _dog_?”

“I-I’m sorry,” Harry mumbles, but Louis doesn’t let him finish.

“Can’t you just get the _fuck_ out of my face?” he yells, and Harry can feel Louis’ saliva on his face. His shouting is so loud that it’s beginning to hurt Harry’s ears and he wonders why nobody is taking him away when he just wants to be out of this situation. “If you want to mess up my playing, fucking don’t next time, you skinny little prick!”

Harry’s lips fall open and he fights desperately to keep tears from escaping his eyes, but the effort isn’t enough, and two roll down his cheek, one from each eye.

Louis snorts, but it’s not a friendly laugh. He’s _mocking_ Harry. “Aw, now the baby is going to cry,” he taunts, lips curling up into a smirk that looks more like a snarl and eyes narrowing behind his glasses. “Grow up and be a fucking man, you _pussy_!”

On the final word, Louis reaches out and shoves Harry, and he stumbles backwards and nearly falls onto his arse onto the hard tile floor. He flings up his arms and starts crying openly now because he can’t _handle_ this, he wasn’t built to be bullied and especially not in this place that’s supposed to be safe for him, that’s supposed to make him feel better. “Please leave me alone,” he whimpers, but Louis grabs him by the collar of his T-shirt and Harry sees him raising his fist in slow motion.

“How’s this for a lesson in leaving me the hell alone when I’m playing?” he growls, but before his fist hurdles into Harry’s cheek, he’s grabbed from behind by two male nurses and is dragged away.

Harry watches in bewilderment as Louis continues to fight, kicking and screaming as the nurses physically pull him out of the room and down a hallway. His shouts echo through to Harry’s ears and Harry starts to feel dizzy. He can hardly breathe, and he realises that he hadn’t taken a breath the whole time Louis was shouting at him. He’s trembling all over and he can feel his lunch churning uncomfortably in his stomach and his chest is _so_ tight and his heart is racing and he’s sweating and his legs feel like they’re going to give out beneath him. Before his head even registers what he’s doing, he bolts through the room and doesn’t stop until he gets to his and Zayn’s shared quarters and shoves the chair from the desk beneath the doorknob and collapses on the bed in a pile of tears and wishes _so fucking hard_ to wake up from this nightmare, but he doesn’t; instead he slips into a fitful sleep just as nurses of his very own burst through the door to make sure he’s still alive and okay.

He wishes he wasn’t.

And all he wanted was to tell Louis he was good at playing.

-

Days pass, melt into weeks, and two weeks soon pass. Two whole weeks that Harry spends thinking Louis hates him. He begs to be left alone in bed, but nobody will let him; they drag him out of his room and Zayn acts like a maid behind him, folding up the bedsheets and tucking everything in even though a _real_ maid will be in to change the sheets later that day. He refuses to listen to Louis play for those entire two weeks and instead follows Zayn and Niall outside where Niall kicks around a football and Zayn lies in the grass and stares up at the clouds. Harry stays back, perched on one of the benches and watches the two of them. Liam stays inside alone, reading, and Harry would go in and keep him company, but he doesn’t even want to be in Louis’ presence, never mind hear him play.

Nobody really pays much mind to Harry. He doesn’t talk much, he’s gone even quieter, and he rivals even Liam in his silence. So he doesn’t draw much attention. Zayn’s a bit cold to Niall, but Niall’s eating more and more and getting stronger, strong enough to even start in a football scrimmage with a couple of other boys. Liam’s proud of him, Harry can tell each day at mealtimes, when Niall begins to eat over a half of his meal every day. But Harry also observes the longing in Zayn’s eyes when he looks to Liam, how sad Zayn is, and Harry knows how it feels to be so nostalgic of the days before that it physically causes pain.

Sometimes, though, Harry finds himself thinking of Louis’ music, usually on the days when he’s plagued with darkness and sadness and feels like there’s nothing left to hold on to. He sort of misses the piano in a strange way. The music. Not the boy playing it. Harry tries so desperately hard to hate Louis, to hate him with his whole soul and being, but he can’t. He tells himself that he does but he just _can’t_.

So he sits outside, his back to the room that he _knows_ Louis is sitting in each and every day, and he lets himself be hated by a boy he can’t be mad at.

-

Harry senses something wrong when he’s going from lunch to free time one day and there’s no piano playing.

Usually, he can hear it from halfway down the hall, even before the door that lets them out into the courtyards. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his robe and looks out the small window in the door at the rain that’s coming down in sheets, and Harry thinks that the weather matches his mood. Since Louis’ apparently not in the room, Harry decides that it wouldn’t hurt if he just sat beside Liam or watched the movie that’s playing today.

There’s a weight bearing down on his shoulders as he drags himself to an empty loveseat in front of the telly and draws his legs up into his chest. It’s an old movie that he’s never heard of, but just something going on other than him sitting alone will help because for once he won’t be focusing on his thoughts which are simply a repeating reel of _I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself_.

The title flashes off the screen and Harry closes his eyes for a moment as the opening music plays. But, when his eyes are closed, he feels two hands press over them from behind him, and he jumps.

“Peekaboo,” a voice says. The same voice that was screaming at him two weeks ago.

Harry turns around and Louis pulls his arms back, tucking them in close to his body. Harry’s heart leaps into his throat, but he knows the last thing he should do is let Louis know that Harry’s missed him in some sort of self-loathing way. He frowns at him and turns around, giving him the cold shoulder.

“Oh, so you’re allowed to do that to me but I can’t?” Louis asks, crossing his arms and going around the sofa and plopping down next to Harry. Harry shies away from the boy, tucking himself into the arm of the chair. He really doesn’t know what Louis is even saying, being all cute with him now when he was about to beat him to death in their last encounter.

Although his heart is pounding against his ribs so hard he can barely hear himself think and he worries that Louis can hear it, Harry draws up the courage to speak. “Can you please tell me what you want?” The words are quiet, and he doesn’t say it meanly. He just genuinely wants to know what the hell is going on so that his anxiety doesn’t go off the charts with the belief that Louis is about to punch him in the face.

Louis’ grin disappears from his face and his face drops, his gaze going down to where his hands are clasped in his lap. “I wanted to apologise for, you know. A while ago.” Harry can feel his heart jump up into his throat, and he swallows thickly. “I kind of have this thing with anger, and some other problems that I take care of myself and playing piano really helps me through it but I sort of lose touch with myself if someone interrupts me.”

Harry looks at him, and their eyes meet, and Louis seems so, _so_ sincere that Harry can’t help but sigh and nod. He doesn’t say anything, just waits for Louis to continue.

“You know,” he says with a soft chuckle. “I saw you watching me play. I’m not blind, and just because I’m playing doesn’t mean I have piano tunnel vision. You used to sit there,” he points, right at the sofa beside the unoccupied piano, “every day, and you used to do absolutely nothing but watch me play.” Harry’s lips curl up a bit as he remembers, the beautiful melodies he found himself reveling in each day. “And you used to check out my arse every time I got up,” Louis adds with a smirk and a wink, and Harry’s cheeks go red.

“You’re right,” Harry admits, and his heart is still racing, but it’s not with anxiety anymore, and he feels like he can finally breathe. “Can’t believe you saw that.”

“How could I not? You aren’t the most subtle.” Louis chuckles again, and Harry thinks it’s adorable, really. “I don’t think I’ve ever properly introduced myself. I’m Louis.”

“Harry,” Harry tells him, and Louis smiles at him. He’s got a really pretty smile, the way his entire face breaks into it and not just his mouth.

“So,” Louis adds, curling his legs up criss-cross-applesauce on the sofa. “How about we watch this movie?”

Harry nods, and the two of them turn to the screen. He pretends not to notice Louis slowly inching closer to him throughout the film, and he can’t help but feel ecstatic when Louis falls asleep gently on his shoulder.

-

“Zayn?” Harry asks one night as he’s lying in bed staring at the ceiling with the covers pulled up to his chin.

Zayn makes a “Hmm?” sound and Harry takes that as his cue to continue.

“I’ve been wondering,” he trails, snuggling down deeper into the covers as he speaks. “Why do you like art so much?”

Zayn takes a breath, and it’s silent for a long moment. Harry almost feels like Zayn isn’t going to answer and that’s okay, but then he finally does.

“Art is the only thing in my life that doesn’t need to be perfect,” he murmurs, nearly inaudible. “It doesn’t have to be organised, doesn’t have any set rules. It just _is_. And I live a life where everything needs to be _perfect perfect perfect_ all the time, and it’s so amazing to have an escape where none of those rules apply.”

Harry doesn’t respond. He falls asleep reveling in how much sense Zayn makes and wondering what his escape from the darkness and anxiety that rules him is.

-

Harry wakes up to Zayn in a total frenzy. He’s sitting in his bed, the sheets a mess, crumpled up in a heap. The pillow is tossed to the ground and half of Zayn’s drawings have been torn off the wall, strewn across the room haphazardly. The chair from the desk is on its side near the end of Harry’s bed. Zayn has his face dropped in his hands and he’s shaking in what Harry can only think is sobs. The mess is so _not Zayn_ that Harry knows he needs to tell someone because something is very, very wrong.

“Zayn,” Harry asks frantically, leaping out of bed and going across the room. “Zayn, tell me what happened.”

Zayn picks his head up from his hands and looks up at Harry with red-rimmed eyes and a tear-stained face. “We missed breakfast,” he whispers, and suddenly he angrily kicks the pile of sheets off his bed. “I fucking overslept. I _don’t_ oversleep. And now I’ve made such a mess and I can’t--”

Harry grabs Zayn’s wrists and looks him in the eyes. “Oversleeping is okay, Zayn. It’s okay, you’re only human. I’ll help you clean this up and then we can go to our therapy sessions okay?”

There’s a pause, and Zayn looks up at Harry with tear-filled eyes and sniffles. “Okay,” he says quietly. “But you missed--”

“I don’t care what I missed,” Harry assures him. “Everything is fine. You just need to breathe. Come on.”

Zayn climbs up off the bed and begins to fix the sheets while Harry collects the drawings from the floor. Some of them are torn, but most seem to be fine, a little crumpled at the most. He gathers them all up in his hand and places them on the desk before picking up the chair and arranging it perfectly, just like Zayn likes it. Once Zayn’s done making his own bed, he crosses the room and fixes Harry’s as well.

“See?” Harry prompts Zayn as he hands him the drawings. “Everything is fine. Now we just have to put these up.”

Zayn takes them into his hands and looks through them, all of them. Some are scenery and some are random and some are portraits of people Harry’s never seen before. But right at the bottom of the pile is the drawing of Liam, with a tear going right through his left eye.

Zayn sighs, taking the torn photo and placing all the rest of them on the desk, grabbing the tape too. He slowly takes what’s left of the pictures on his wall and pulls them off, piling them on his bed, before carefully taping Liam together again and hanging him right back up. He takes the rest of the drawings and sticks them into the sketchbook, making sure none of the pages are sticking out of the sides, and he puts his slippers on, preparing to leave.

Harry, however, can’t do anything but stare at the lone drawing of Liam on the wall. The rip in it isn’t obvious, but it’s noticeable--so far from the perfection Zayn’s been maintaining for as long as and long before Harry’s known him. It’s imperfect, it’s fallible, it’s nearly _human_ , per se. And for knowing Zayn for two months, Harry knows, he  _knows_ that Zayn needs things perfect. And just the simple fact that the only portrait on Zayn’s wall is a torn sketch of Liam speaks volumes.

Zayn is willing to give up his need for perfection for Liam. And that’s when it’s clear to Harry that Zayn really does love him.

-

The familiar sound of Louis playing piano is present that day after lunch and Harry feels a soft smile settle in on his lips as he walks into the multipurpose room and heads straight for his old spot on the sofa beside the piano. He’s careful not to disturb Louis in his playing, which is why he’s totally caught off-guard when Louis says hello to him.

“Good afternoon,” he giggles, eyes not looking up from the keys as he plays a light and airy tune, sort of staccato and quirky. “Didn’t see you at breakfast today.”

So, Louis looks for Harry at meals now? “Zayn and I overslept,” Harry tells him, stretching out on the sofa and kicking his legs out. They dangle over the arm on the opposite side, but it’s not his fault he’s got a gigantuar body. “You’re really amazing at that, you know.”

“I know,” Louis says cheekily. Something inside Harry tells him that he shouldn’t be having such friendly conversation with a person who made him feel like such shit for such a long time, but something else inside him doesn’t care. “So, Harry. Is there anything you’re good at?”

The grin suddenly disappears from Harry’s face. There really isn’t anything Harry’s good at aside from being sad and hating himself and abusing drugs. He opens his mouth but instead says nothing, listening to Louis play. The question hangs in the air for a moment before disappearing, and Louis goes on to speak again.

“Guess not.” He pauses from playing to go and sit beside Harry, first lifting his legs up from where they’re crossed along the sofa, then plopping them down on his lap. Harry adjusts himself to make himself more comfortable, but Louis’ lap is soft and warm and Harry kind of likes the way it feels. He’s never been so intimately close to a person before. At least not for a very, very long time.

He leans his head back onto the padded arm that’s beneath it. “Why’d you stop playing?” he asks as he stares back at the piano in front of him. It looks strange upside down, even stranger with Louis not sitting there playing it.

Louis taps a finger on Harry’s leg and responds, “Didn’t want to disrupt the film.” Which Harry knows is a lie, because it’s not anything he’s ever hesitated to do before.

Harry makes a sound in his throat and draws his head back in so he can look at Louis. He hasn’t got his glasses on today, and Harry can see how long his eyelashes are as he looks down and rests his hands on Harry’s leg as if it were the keys of a piano. He starts to play along Harry’s leg, humming out a tune along with it. Harry recognises the song--“How to Save a Life” by The Fray. He smiles at the comforting touch of Louis’ fingers through the thin fabric of his pajama pants. (Harry’s got about twenty pairs of the same exact clothes in the wardrobe in his room.)

As Louis hums the song, a thought occurs to Harry that total strangers cuddling up so close to each other on the third day that they’ve known each other (the first being a nearly physical fight) is strange. But Harry’d be lying if he said that he didn’t feel at home with Louis, from the first day he walked in and heard him playing piano by himself in the corner of the room. Even Louis falling asleep on Harry’s shoulder felt right, whether it was intentional or not. Truth be told, waking him up was adorable, because his hair was all fluffy and his eyes were all big and sleepy and he had a precious habit of pulling the sleeves of his white cotton robe down over his hands like paws.

So, Harry lay there while Louis played songs on his legs until the nurses came to get them all for their group sessions, and he soon felt freezing without the boy so close to him.

-

Harry, Niall, Liam and Zayn are settled at their usual table with their breakfast the next morning when Louis slides into the chair next to Harry with a plate full of pancakes and a grin on his face.

“Morning!” he says cheerily as he picks up his plastic fork and knife and begins to cut into the pancake mountain on the plate. The rest of the boys all look at each other, aside from Harry. He just smiles.

“Hi, Louis,” Harry murmurs, looking at him with a grin before turning to eat his own meal. Across the table, Zayn and Niall shoot each other a look, and Liam chuckles to himself before he puts a forkful of food into his mouth. Harry ignores all of them.

The rest of breakfast is full of conversation. Louis’ got a huge personality packed down into a tiny little boy of a man, and Harry thinks it’s quite a feat that he’s not bursting at the seams with joy. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wonders what the catch is, what his baggage is, _why_ he’s here. They’ve all got their own little problems, but Louis’ is just so packed deeply within him that Harry can’t find it. Harry just keeps it tucked away, knowing that the time will come and one day he’ll know everything about this boy. He can just feel it.

-

Louis becomes a part of the pack. Liam still doesn’t talk and Zayn still needs everything to be perfect (he’s even a bit annoyed with Harry now because there’s _five_ of them not _four_ and five is an odd number which means at the table for meals they’ll never be balanced out perfectly and there will always be three on one side and two on the other and that will always drive him nuts) and Niall still can barely eat half of his meals and they’re all the same but now instead of silence, everything is loud. Louis is loud and he doesn’t let anything be too quiet for too long. Harry can tell that Niall really likes Louis, and so does Zayn. Liam’s just hard to read in general. But he smiles a lot when Louis is around, and Harry thinks that’s a good thing.

A couple of weeks pass and it’s like Louis was there for the whole time. Harry still can’t figure out why he’s here because he’s just a big ball of energy, so happy and energetic. Harry’s not with him all the time, though, so maybe there’s something there that he just doesn’t see.

He enjoys Louis’ company, though. Harry loves to have someone to take his mind off of everything he’s feeling, and Louis is just perfect for that job. As he plays piano with Harry listening on the sofa beside it or as he cracks a joke over a plate of food or as he kicks a football around with Niall outside while Harry watches, Louis just has a knack of making Harry happy. And Harry quite likes that change from the usual.

\-   

“What are you doing tonight?”

Louis comes up behind Harry and rests his head on Harry’s shoulder as he’s pouring himself a cup of water from the new dispenser they’ve put in the multipurpose room. Harry thinks it’s sort of a dumb question, considering they’re all on the same schedule. “Probably going to come in here and do nothing with you and Liam and Zayn and Niall, considering it’s pouring out,” he says, nodding to where the window looks like a solid sheet of water.

With a chuckle, Louis shakes his head. “No, no, I mean _after_ that.” The two of them walk together to the piano, where Harry settles down on the sofa and Louis begins to play piano slowly.

“Going to bed?” Harry asks slowly. “Like we’re supposed to?”

Louis’ hands fall from the keys and he looks towards Harry. “Boy, have you got some learning to do,” he comments. Harry looks at him, confused, but then Louis leans in close and whispers, “Don’t go to bed after lights out. Wait twenty minutes, you’ll hear a knock on your door, three raps real fast. It’ll be me. And when I come, you need to be quiet, okay?”

Harry looks at him blankly, but nods. Louis is the greatest adventure Harry’s ever had.

-

At lights out, Zayn tucks himself into bed and mumbles a goodnight to Harry as he goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Harry comes back into the room a few minutes later and sits down on his made bed, watching Zayn’s chest move up and down in sleep. Harry can’t get the thought of the photo of Liam off his mind so he turns away, looking towards the bathroom door. His palms are growing sweaty as the seconds tick by and he can just imagine staying up for hours and hours with Louis never showing up. Harry’s always had that horrible anxiety that convinced him that whenever someone asked him to do something they would just forget about him and blow him right off.

He starts to get nervous as the seconds turn into minutes and Louis still isn’t there. Everything is silent and dark except for the pounding of the rain on his window, and he lays back, staring up at his ceiling like he did forever ago and thought about the stars on his window. The darkness seems to go on forever and he feels as if he could see eternity through his ceiling. It’s sort of peaceful, the thought that darkness goes on forever, but it worries Harry that since he’s made of darkness he’ll just be there forever and will never get a chance to rest.

He’s still deep in his thoughts when he hears the three quick knocks on the heavy metal door. There’s a sort of ticking sound as Louis picks the lock of the door, and when it swings open, Louis silently steps in and gathers Harry up in a hug.

Harry smiles so wide it feels as if he’s going to burst, but Louis holds his finger up to his lips and takes Harry’s hand in his and wraps their fingers together. A chill goes up Harry’s spine and he’s embarrassed for a moment because his palms are sweaty from his anxiety, but Louis’ hand is small and warm and soft and Harry loves the way Louis’ fingers feel between his and it relaxes him and he feels better just being with him.

It’s silent except for the thump of Harry’s heartbeat as Louis leads them through the hall down to his own room. The door is propped open with a bunched up blanket, and he opens and closes it slowly so that it doesn’t slam.

Harry looks around. The room is just the same as his and Zayn’s is, just much, much, _much_ less pristine. Clothes and blankets and sheets are all over the floor, and there’s a figure asleep in the bed opposite Louis’.

“You room with Liam?” Harry whispers, and Louis smiles.

“Maybe you should learn more about your friends,” he tells him.

Louis lets go of Harry’s hand for a moment, and Harry’s smile falters a bit at the emptiness he feels. He knows that the only reason he held it was so he could lead him to his room, but it was a nice feeling to be so close to someone as amazing as Louis. He fiddles with his window and soon flings it up all the way open, and Harry looks at him, amazed. Harry’s window is rigged so that it only goes up two inches, if that.

Harry watches as Louis climbs up onto the desk and starts to head out through the window into the rain. “You do realise it’s pouring, right?” he questions, a fond grin on his lips.

“Yes,” Louis says. “Now come on and get your arse out here.”

Harry rolls his eyes and takes of his socks and slippers and robe and rolls his pajama pants up to his knees before he mimics Louis and hops down onto the ground outside the window. He runs up through the field barefoot, leaving Harry standing alone beneath the veranda made where the roof hangs over just a bit. Louis spins in circles, laughing, and Harry watches him as his heart swells with something he just can’t put his finger on.

Louis is absolutely soaked when he comes back and grabs Harry’s wrist and shouts “Don’t be such a tosser, come out and have fun with me!” Harry just sort of stands there for a moment, letting his hair mat down to his head as the mud squishes between his toes and leaves him in a fit of giggles.

He lets Louis dance in circles around him, watching until Louis suddenly pushes Harry and he nearly falls down on his face in the mud.

“I didn’t bring you out here for you to stand around,” Louis shouts through the roar of the rain. It’s absolutely pouring, and Harry can feel a chill settling into his bones but he’s just not _cold_ while Louis is around. He reaches out for Harry’s hand again and a warmth surges through his body as they dance to silent music, hopping around with their bodies pressed close together and their laughter echoing everywhere.

Harry can’t remember being as happy as he is that night. The rain pounds down on the both of them and they just keep dancing and laughing as if the two haven’t got a care in the world, as if they aren’t stuck in a rehab facility for being not okay, as if they were the happiest people on God’s green earth. For just that night, Harry feels okay, he feels good, he feels _happy_ , and he’s here with one of what seems to be his favourite people in the world and he’s just so, so _happy_.

He’s smiling wider than he has in years when Louis stops and looks up at him with those big, big blue eyes. Harry feels like he can look into Louis’ eyes and see the wisps of his soul weaving through the colours of his iris, but he doesn’t have the time to. Louis grabs Harry by wrapping his hands around the back of his neck and goes up onto his tiptoes and presses his lips to Harry’s, and despite the cold of the rain pouring down on them, Harry feels as if he’s on fire.

The kiss isn’t steamy, nor is it a peck, but as Louis’ lips fit right into Harry’s as if they were made to be there, Harry feels like there are fireworks in his blood, like he’s aflame with feelings and he can’t help but pull Louis closer and let his eyes fall shut as he pushes his fingers into Louis’ soaked hair. Harry feels so light, as if he’s floating, as if all the weight that was always, perpetually on his shoulders is suddenly lifted off and he’s just rising up into the air. He tightens his grip in Louis’ hair just to make sure that he doesn’t just flow into the wind and blow away, and he smiles into the kiss because he feels so good. So right. So perfect.

They break apart, breathing slow and steady, and press their foreheads together, Harry’s hands still in Louis’ hair and Louis’ hands still cupping the back of Harry’s neck. They stare into each other’s eyes, Harry’s green meeting Louis’ blue, and both of them have bigger smiles than they even thought they could have.

“You know,” Harry murmurs, looking down at Louis. “I’m so glad I interrupted your piano playing that day.”

Louis laughs and kisses Harry again quickly before running off laughing, leaving Harry to chase him.

-

Harry’s hair is still wet when Zayn wakes him up the next morning. He’d hidden his wet clothes in Louis’ room and had gone back to his own in just a robe and his socks and slippers so that he didn’t leave a dripping mess down the hall, but his hair’s damp and so is his pillow.

“Night sweats again?” Zayn asks, a hint of concern in his voice.

Harry chuckles and gets up, tucking his feet into the slippers by his bed. “Sure,” he mutters, but he’s got a smile on his face that he can’t seem to get rid of.

-

They don’t sneak around again until nearly a week has gone by, and Louis comes into the room after lunch with Harry and just heads straight for a sofa instead of the piano. He sits down and waits for Harry to sit beside him before he leans in close, his lips nearly brushing Harry’s earlobe.

“I’m coming to your room tonight. I’m bringing Liam with me, so keep Zayn up. It’ll be just you and me tonight, okay?”

Harry nods, and the rest of the day leaves him plagued with _what if_ s for the evening.

Finally, at lights out, Harry tells Zayn not to get into bed and that he has a surprise for him, and it almost seems as if Zayn’s going to hit him until Louis picks the lock and Liam arrives and Zayn’s entire body just completely lights up.

Louis goes over to Harry. “How cute those two are,” he murmurs, and Harry chuckles as Louis twines their hands together and leads him to his room.

When they get there, Louis carefully curls up a blanket and stuffs it as deep as it will go beneath the door. Harry watches with a rumpled brow and wonders what this crazy boy could be doing, because a blanket under the door won’t do really _anything_ considering they’ve already snuck around in the halls as much as they needed to. He’s still confused as Louis walks over and flings the window open with some careful presses and tugs. He hops up onto his bed and pats the spot beside him, waiting for Harry to sit down before he produces a pack of cigarettes from beneath the mattress.

“Louis,” Harry stutters, taken aback. “You can’t smoke in here.”

Louis rolls his eyes and grins. “Yes you can. You just block up the door and open the window so nobody smells the smoke.” He lays back onto the pillows and gestures for Harry to come and lay down next to him. Opening the pack, he first takes a small lighter from it and pulls out one cigarette, carefully lighting it and bringing it slowly to his lips, taking a long drag and closing his eyes as he blows it out. “God, that feels fucking nice.”

Harry lays beside him, his hand resting on Louis’ thigh, and he thinks as Louis smokes his cigarette. He thinks of how this just is so different from everything he’s used to. Harry’s played by the rules the entire time he’s been here and it just takes one boy to flip everything around. Harry can’t ignore the butterflies in his stomach and the way his insides flip-flop around when he realises that he’s got Louis with him here, and it’s insane the way someone can make Harry as happy as he does.

Harry’s still caught in his train of thought when Louis says, “Sit up, I want to try something.”

Harry listens, sitting upright as Louis does and facing him. Louis takes a drag of the cigarette and keeps the smoke down before the takes his thumb and leads Harry’s mouth to his, taking his lips in an open-mouthed kiss and blowing the smoke into Harry’s mouth. He coughs a bit at first because it’s been a while since he’s smoked a cigarette, but the way it lingers in Harry’s lungs as he sucks it in leaves him feeling better, much better. Relaxed. He blows the smoke out from between his lips and takes the cigarette from Louis and does the same to him, just for an excuse to kiss him again.

The evening is filled with smoke and sloppy kisses until the cigarette’s burned down to the filter, and Louis shoves it back beneath his mattress while he and Harry make out lazily til the sun starts to peek through the curtains.

-

Things begin to change. Harry’s hands don’t shake anymore and he’s always got a small smile on his face when he sees Louis. Days are filled with stolen kisses and quick touches and cuddles on the sofa watching a movie when Louis isn’t playing piano, and nights are filled with sneaky trips to Louis’ room to cuddle in his tiny bed and trace patterns up each other’s arms. Harry’s happy, and it seems as if Louis is, too, but a different sort of happiness than his usual one. A happy-to-the-core kind of happy.

At a therapy session, Dr. Russell finally asks Harry why he’s got such a grin on his face, and he can’t help but rave about the boy that’s now his.

Rehab starts to feel like home with Louis, the way they fit together just so and match like puzzle pieces. There’s a look in Zayn’s eyes and Harry knows that Zayn knows how it feels, to be so in love that it rules over you, and it’s sadness when he watches the way Zayn looks at Liam.

Eventually, Niall begins to finish plate after plate of food. He’s always got a big, big grin on his face and Harry loves the change in him because after four months he’s so much better than he was when Harry met him. He soon gets discharged and on the day he goes back home, he hugs them all and whispers “Tell him you love him” in Harry’s ear. Harry turns bright red and pushes Niall away. Liam speaks the second and third and fourth words Harry’s ever heard him say that day when he tells Niall, “I’ll miss you,” and they all end up in tears.

Things are really changing, and Harry faces it head on with Louis’ hand in his.

-

“Why are you even in here?” Harry finally asks one day. He and Louis are sprawled out on the grass, staring up at the stars that are shining far up above them. Louis is tucked under Harry’s arm with his head resting on Harry’s chest, and it’s quiet except for the crickets and it’s perfect.

Louis fidgets beneath his arm. “Because I like being with you, silly,” he says, but Harry knows that Louis knows what he meant, and he’s quiet for a moment, waiting for Louis to answer the way he wants.

Instead, Louis points up at the sky. “Watch the stars, Harry,” he tells him, and Harry does. He pulls Louis closer into his chest and watches them. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

Harry looks, from one star to the other, shining lights in the sky, friends for the moon, glistening as if they were specks of pixie dust scattered across the darkness. He nods, the soft ends of Louis’ hair tickling his chin, and breathes, “Yeah, of course they are.”

“Well,” Louis begins, clearing his throat and dropping his arm down onto his chest. He shifts, tucking himself further beneath Harry’s arm and nestling the crown of his head into the crook of Harry’s neck. “They look like little twinkling lights from far down here. But do you know what stars are?” He doesn’t give Harry time to answer. “They’re chaos. They’re just big, burning balls of gas. Fiery and hot and burning until one day they run out of fuel and they just burn into nothingness. A black hole.” The smaller boy sighs, reaching up across his body to wrap his hand into Harry’s. “We’re a lot like those stars, Harry,” he murmurs, snuggling in close. “Did you know that?”

Harry presses a kiss to Louis’ temple and remains that way, burrowing his nose into his hair. “We’re giant burning balls of gas?” he questions condescendingly, and Louis chuckles, and Harry thinks there’s no place he’d rather be.

“No, you twat,” Louis mumbles, but he’s pressed tightly into Harry’s side and his fingers are tangled in Harry’s and he’s resting his head on Harry’s chest and every cell of him, every molecule, just screams _Harry’s_. “We’re burnouts. We've got nobody but each other and nothing to look forward to except darkness and blankness in death. We burn and burn and burn because that’s our job, we’re just here to exist, and when we run out of fuel we just… stop. We die, just like the stars. Even the stars, the prettiest things ever to exist, die. It’s funny. Nothing is forever, you know.”

Harry sits in silence, squeezing Louis’ fingers between his and nodding.

“For me…” Louis continues, unprecedented, “it’s like, if even the stars burn out one day, why don’t we burn as brightly as we should? Why do we waste all our energy on pointless things like money, or jobs, or the way we look? Why don’t we care about the important things like love? Why don’t we just have fun with ourselves, you know? We can just… burn out. Like the stars.”

It’s quiet after the short soliloquy, and they just sit there and… exist for a while. It’s just them, lying there, no distractions, no loudness, no scheduled times cutting them off. It’s just Harry and Louis, and even for a little while, it’s nice, so nice, because they fit together and they belong together and they are together and for one of the first times in his life, Harry feels perfect.

“It’s hard to explain,” Louis says suddenly, cutting the silence in half, “because I don’t have just one psychological problem. But you’ve seen my anger problems which are a part of my bipolar disorder.” Harry closes his eyes and blows out a breath through his nose, thinking about how he just wants to wrap Louis up beside him forever and protect him. “I don’t think you knew about this, though.”

He sits up, tugging down his trousers a bit, and Harry nearly suspects him to strip right there on the lawn, but instead he reveals a hip that’s covered in scars, thick and pink, almost angry looking. The wind is knocked from Harry’s lungs and he reaches down to touch it with tears pricking at his eyes. When his fingers brush over the soft skin, he looks up at Louis without a word and simply kisses him. He pulls his face away for just a moment and mumbles, “I love you, Louis. I really, really love you.”

Louis sucks in a breath and goes completely silent. Harry’s suddenly wrought with the fear that he’s done something, said something wrong, but he’s proven wrong when Louis rolls over and pulls Harry with him so that they’re facing each other and he grabs Harry’s cheeks and pulls him in for the firmest kiss he’s ever given. Harry feels dampness on his cheeks and realises that Louis is crying, he’s _actually crying_ , and Harry fights the urge to cry too, just wraps his arms around Louis and presses his lips into his and holds him tight as they move together, just one being for a short time, just existing, just louisandharry. Just perfect.

“No one has ever said that to me and meant it,” Louis whispers tearfully into the darkness of the night. “Harry, I love you with all my heart, and I’m going to love you for the rest of my life.”

Harry kisses him hard one more time before telling him, “I love you so much that I wonder why I ever thought I would be better off alone.”

Harry’s holding Louis tightly with both arms wrapped around him when Louis says, so quietly that Harry can barely hear it, “The sun’s the biggest star in our galaxy, you know. And the moon can’t shine without the sun’s light, because moonlight is just a reflection of the sun’s. I’m the moon and you’re the sun, Harry. I can’t shine without you.”

Harry doesn’t know why Louis is calling him the sun when Louis himself burns brighter and hotter than any of Harry’s flames ever have.

-

The days slow down and people begin to leave. Niall’s the first among many to go home and by Harry’s fifth and final month, the rooms nearly feel empty and barren, just him and Louis and Liam and Zayn and a dozen of other patients scattered around places that were once buzzing.

Louis and Harry both know that their days together are growing thin because Harry’s leaving and Louis’ not. They make their best effort to spend every waking moment together, trading roomates with Zayn for nights just so they can curl up together and talk about everything and just be. Their favourite thing to do is just be.

The days tick down and cross off on the calendar and the two spend them at the piano, Harry sat beside Louis as Louis’ hands rest atop Harry’s, guiding him to the right keys, slow and deliberate but still beautiful nonetheless. Harry’s no Louis, but he’s decent with the piano, and Louis smiles and rests his head on Harry’s shoulder as the two play a simple duet.

The night soon comes. Their last night together for God knows how long. Louis comes to get Harry and he holds his hand as tightly as he can because soon he won’t have Harry’s fingers between his, and even though neither of them want to say it, they don’t know what they’ll do without each other. Louis is what’s made Harry get better. Not the therapy or the medicine or the regimens. _Louis_. “You’re the reason I’m going home,” Harry tells him a few times, and Louis is so, so happy for that, but all he can give is a brisk nod because he knows he’s going to lose him.

The curl up together and Louis pulls the cigarette pack from beneath his mattress and pulls out a joint, waving it around and saying “I’ve been saving this for a special occasion,” so he lights it and sucks in the thick smoke between his lips and blows it right back into Harry’s mouth. The two take turns on taking their hits and soon the joint is burned to the quick and they both lie there in silence, legs tangled into each others’ and arms wrapped around each other’s bodies and just curled in close to make the most of the mere hours they have left.

“Harry?” Louis says quietly, breaking the silence of their existence and running his hand up beneath Harry’s shirt, tracing it along the soft, smooth skin of his stomach.

“Yes, babe?” Harry responds, voice slow and lazy.

Louis brings his hand back down Harry’s abdomen and slips his fingers just below the waistband of his pants. “Please show me you love me. Prove that you won’t forget about me.”

Harry’s hands are shaking, but they’re not for the same reason they always had been. He feels his eyes welling as he climbs atop Louis and pulls his shirt off, leaning down to press a kiss to his lips. Louis is trembling as well, and tears escape his eyes as Harry slowly undresses him. Louis has a tube of lube beneath his mattress as well, tucked against the pack of cigarettes, and he fumbles for it and hands it to Harry, who kneels down at Louis’ feet and pulls off his pants and boxers.

Staring at Louis as he’s lying there, crying and nude, about to give himself entirely and totally to him, Harry falls in love with Louis just a little bit more. He’s so beautiful, so small and delicate, the pink scars on his hips contrasting with his golden skin, and all Harry can do is lean down and kiss them slowly, deliberately, lovingly.

“I love you,” he tells Louis between each kiss. The scars are raised against his lips. “I love you so much. You’re like my sun, baby. The brightest star shining up in the sky.” He presses a kiss to the other hip, his thumb gently rubbing over the other. “I'm your moon, I can't shine without you, remember? I would never forget the sun unless the world was over.”

Louis and Harry are both still crying and Louis begins to murmur “I love you so much” over and over as Harry makes love to him quietly while the end of their final night seeps into the morning of their final day.

-

Harry’s mum and stepdad and sister show up to get him at eight in the morning. They wait in the lobby of the facility for Harry to come out dressed in the clothes they brought him. His jeans feel too tight and his shirt feels too soft but he loves it. He’s finally in something that’s his.

But something inside him makes him feel so empty. Like he’s leaving a piece of himself behind. No longer will he hear the beauty of the piano music that saved him from the very first day he heard it. No longer will he feel the sparks of a touch with Louis, no longer the flame of his kiss. It’s like they’re pulling him from hell where he’s lucky enough to have his bit of heaven and throwing him right back into purgatory.

Louis runs up to Harry, tears openly streaming down his face, just before he leaves. Harry’s already said goodbyes to Zayn and Liam at breakfast, where Louis was nowhere to be found. Louis’ eyes are red-rimmed and tearfilled and his brow is rumpled and he looks so hurt, so sad, so _broken_ , and Harry would do anything to stay, to take Louis with him, to wrap him up and protect him forever, but he just can’t.

They hug for what seems like forever and neither of them can really bear to let go, and Louis leans back, sobbing quietly.

“Don’t forget me,” he whispers against Harry’s lips just before he kisses him for the very last time.

“Not unless the world is ending,” Harry assures him. “I’ll love you forever.”

They kiss, but it’s not nearly enough for them, and Harry can’t turn back to look at Louis’ face through the glass as the door closes between them.

-

Home is nothing.

Home is just a promise of familiarity yet chaos. Home is not the practised perfection of Zayn’s hands, home is not the content silence of times spent with Liam. Home is not the jokes shared with Niall. Home is not the knowledge that you will wake up that day and everything will go the way it is supposed to.

Home is not Louis.

Home is not his lingering touch, is not the fire that burns hot in Harry’s veins as they kiss, is not the overwhelming lightness that fills his body when they’re together. Home is not the mischievous glint in Louis’ eyes when he’s breaking the rules, is not the sheer beauty of watching his fingers fly over the keys, is not the sweet comfort of heart-breaking and heart-swelling piano music that touches your soul.

Home is nothing but old clothes and a musty smell and colours other than white.

Harry nearly wants to return, which is crazy, isn’t it? Harry wants to go back to the place where he was forced to let go of what he had grown so accustomed to. But that simple place turned into everything he wanted; the place let him feel again, _Louis_ let him feel again, and he knows nothing will let him forget any second that was spent there, because every single second can somehow be connected to the feathery haired boy. He won’t let himself forget Louis’ airy voice, his soft hair, his sweet yet familiar and homey scent, the scratch of his stubble against Harry’s cheek, the tenderness of his lips pressed up against Harry’s. Harry promised _forever_ , and he won’t let himself destroy that promise.

Harry loved Louis so much that he didn’t remember how empty it was to be alone.

It’s in that moment Harry realizes, with an ache in his chest, that Louis had grown to be his home.

-

It’s a snowy day in early January. Nearly three months since Harry’s been discharged. There’s a hole in his life, a hole that he once filled with drug abuse and numbness to keep him from falling in; a hole that was later filled with the love of a boy so perfect, so fitting, that once torn away, he ripped that hole bigger. Harry can’t help but search for the missing part of his life, and nothing seems to fill it the way Louis did.

He’s struggled. He would be lying if he said he was okay. He’s tried so, so hard to keep his head up, to stay away from the darkness that’s wrapped itself around his wrists and tugged him down each and every day. He promised Louis, and he would not break that promise. He promised to stay strong, to be okay, and he promised never, ever to forget him, even when everyone said forgetting was his first step to escaping his pain.

You never really forget your first love.

The snow is piling up in drifts outside and it’s grey and gloomy out, and Harry spends the day inside watching television that doesn’t nearly keep his mind awake. He trails off to his first days with Louis, their first kiss in the rain, the way they touched and connected without ever sharing a word. He’s still thinking about Louis when the doorbell rings, about how much he longs for him, to have him in his arms once more.

He heaves himself up off the sofa that’s just too cold with no one there to share it with him and opens the door, looking down at his stoop.

He sees a pair of black Vans sneakers. Fairly small. The shoes are connected to a pair of legs in dark wash jeans with the ends rolled up, and Harry feels his heart begin to race and climb up into his throat as he traces the ankles up into calves and perfect, firm thighs and a waist that rested his hands perfectly and arms that held him so tight and collarbones he kissed so tenderly and scruff that scratched his cheeks just the right way and lips that read deep into his soul and _Louis_.

Harry’s breathing runs erratic and he can’t control the tears that spring from his eyes as he grabs the boy he loves so much and holds him tighter than he ever had and kisses him so passionately he’s surprised that there aren’t fireworks and sparks bursting from their lips.

They don’t speak, just stare at each other with eyes wide and amazed. Three months apart were the most tortuous times for the both of them, those two boys who fell in love far too hard and far too fast. Harry brings him inside and slams the door behind him to keep out the cold, peppering his face with kisses and tracing his body with his hands and making sure he’s there, really there, that this isn’t some dream or hallucination or something that isn’t real.

But it’s real. Louis’ real. He’s real and he’s right there in front of Harry, smiling until his crying eyes crinkle.

“Forever,” Harry tells him quietly, and he can’t help but sob, lips drawn up into a smile and tears falling to splatter on his shirt. When they kiss, their tears mix together, smearing on each other’s cheeks. “I told you I would love you forever.”

“You did,” Louis whispers against Harry’s lips. “And we’ve still got forever left for us to love.”

Those words sound like music to Harry’s ears. He’s got forever to spend with the sole reason he’s got such a smile on his face. Harry’s whole again, finally whole again, and he will be now, forever.

And that’s exactly what happened; they spend their lives together explaining each sole reason on how they’re the reason they come home.

Because home is each other, and that’s one thing they’ll never lose.

 


End file.
